


To Call for Hands of Above

by panchostokes (badwolfrun)



Series: Prompt Fics [107]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Angst, Episode: s02e19 Stalker, Episode: s05e24-25 Grave Danger, Episode: s08e17 For Gedda, Gen, Heartbeats, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Soulmates AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28962090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes
Summary: You knew the hand of the devilAnd youKept us awake with wolves teethSharing different heartbeatsIn one night
Relationships: Warrick Brown & Nick Stokes
Series: Prompt Fics [107]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1540795
Comments: 7
Kudos: 10





	To Call for Hands of Above

**Author's Note:**

  * For [impossiblepluto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossiblepluto/gifts).



> to fill the prompt of shared heartbeats as part of a soulmates au prompt list. This one doesn't have a happy ending. Sorry.

It doesn’t happen until they actually become “friends.”

Well, “friends” by Nick’s standards—and he had long been assuming that’s what they were all along, ever since the first day they worked a case together and discovered they had similar interests, similar tastes in humor, a similar spark in their eyes for justice and wanting to do their job and do it right. 

But Warrick seemed to close off a bit of himself at first, which wasn’t apparent until something had endangered his heart. 

Nick saw it coming.

He tried to warn him. 

But he’s there for him anyway when Warrick falls apart and falls backwards into some old habits that had gotten him in trouble before. And Nick can’t control that, can’t control him, but he could at least just. _Be there for him._

“What are you doing here?” Warrick’s voice wasn’t as hostile as before, but he still had a guard up. He sighed, his voice was resigned. He wasn’t going to push Nick away, but didn’t exactly want _any_ company at the time.

“I’m playing cards,” Nick said simply, settling into his seat next to Warrick. “With my friend.”

Warrick looked at him, looked at the open door—though Nick Stokes still had _many_ doors that were closed off—that Nick was holding for him. 

An outreach. To not even pick him up off the ground when he falls, but to just. _Be there for him._

Though Warrick still had his doubts, having run into closed doors all his life, having slammed a few of his own, he walks through this one. Takes Nick’s hand.

They’ve always been on the same page before—that’s what made them such great partners even if, in their earlier days they would often goof around and place bets on each other and have their disputes.

But this moment, this synchronization of their hearts to one another changed _everything._

They don’t realize it at first, the next couple weeks being uneventful besides routine workouts that they would do together, basketball games and weight lifting and running that got their blood pumping, their heart rates rising. 

It’s not until the first true thrill, not the first and definitely not the last threat on Nick’s life that they realize something has changed between them, more than just a promoted level of friendship.

Warrick was on the phone, on a balcony, on a door-to-door calling with Nick as they run down a list of utility companies. Everything seemed routine enough, Nick even seemed to have a little pep in his step as he jogged up the stairs, telling Warrick how he should get in on the cable package he just got installed.

His heart rate was beginning to rise with the frustration of trying to understand the person on the other end of the line—constant cutting in and out which was more of just annoying than downright...upsetting? Frightening? He didn’t understand why he was getting so worked up—

Until his heart was pushed back out of his body, as Nick was pushed out of a window.

The panic didn’t stop, though Nick was motionless. Taking sharp gaspsfuls of air through thinly parted lips—Nick didn’t understand why _his_ heart was still _thump-thump-thump_ -thumping away, he felt somehow trapped within a broken shell as Warrick cupped his hand on the side of his face, his gun frantically shaking in the other as a shield for both of them. 

“It’s okay, Nicky, just-just don’t move, alright?” Warrick muttered softly, though his breathing became strained, too. Staggered. Off rhythm. 

Nick thought he’d never be able to move again.

He watched his fingers—still gloved, still encased which intensified his feeling of some sort of entrapment, a paralysis, even—twitching and once Warrick tossed down his radio he gripped on to them. 

Before Nick decided to give up his fight against his unmoving body and slip away into darkness, he could have sworn he felt Warrick’s pulse match up with his own.

In the hospital, Nick’s heart remains steady under a forced sleep of recovery. Warrick’s steadies, too, though it spikes up in his anger at himself, his guilt for not going after the bastard that was responsible for this. It was a split second decision but at the time he found himself more drawn to Nick in his own fear of being thrown off the balcony, too, rather than following the instinct to chase the bad guy.

Grissom told him he did the right thing.

Nothing was right about this.

Which is why he felt like he needed to leave, needed to go _do_ something because he felt trapped, felt like he couldn’t move so he _needed_ to move, and he couldn’t keep staring at Nick’s pained face tightening and twisting as the heart monitor rose, couldn’t imagine the terror he must have been feeling even in a dreamless sleep—

“I’m going with you,” he told Grissom.

“No, no. You need to calm down. Talk to Nick when he wakes up.”

Calm. _Calm._ Warrick forced a calm over himself when he set up camp next to Nick’s bed, and Nick’s heart monitor seemed to calm down, too. 

He did his best to stave off any intrusive thoughts from the guilt gutting his stomach for the sake of keeping it that way, but when Nick woke up, his heart woke up too.

“Rick…” Nick croaked, and Warrick shushed him gently, pressing his hand against his chest and pushing him back into the bed.

“Shh, it’s okay, buddy, take it easy,” Warrick murmured. _Beep-beep-beep-beep._

“What? What happened? Where am I? Why can’t I move?” Nick’s voice was low, quivering. Confused. Concussed.

Warrick felt a pang in his heart that called tears out of Nick’s eyes.

“You can move, you just. You gotta _relax,_ Nicky.”

“What’s happening? Why do I—Why do I feel...your heart in mine?”

“My heart—what are you talking about, man?” Warrick chuckled, hoping that Nick would catch onto it.

Nick wrapped one hand around Warrick’s wrist to keep it planted on his chest, while used the other to pull Warrick towards him, to put his hand on his chest. 

“You feel that?” Nick whispered. “Our heartbeats...they’re in sync.”

Warrick felt Nick’s heart still rapidly beating away, felt his own in a free-fall that made his eyes watery. He pulled back, put his fingers to his wrist and mentally calculated his heart rate as he saw a close estimation of the same numbers appear on the heart monitor.

“That...doesn’t make any sense.”

“What could it mean?” Nick lifted his head but it fell back, rolled. His eyes fluttered, he was fighting to stay awake. 

“I think it means you need some more rest before we get to talkin,” Warrick sighed. He didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to stay trapped here in this hospital room anymore than Nick wanted to, either. 

“Been slept enough,” Nick blurted. His heart sank. So did Nick’s. 

As if on cue, the nurse walked in. 

“Mr. Stokes, you weren’t supposed to wake up for another hour.”

“See, do what the nurse says,” Warrick gestured as he leaned back, but Nick grabbed his wrist. Dug his fingers into Warrick’s veins, physically feeling his pulse.

“Stay?” he rasped out.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll stay, Nicky.” 

He and Sara drop Nick off at home a couple hours later, once he passes both the hospital and his friends’ test of lucidity. He recalled as much as he could about what happened at the house, which wasn’t much and Warrick’s heart hurt watching him struggle to remember—and he knew it was hurting Nick, too.

Nick of course still tried to be part of the case, and Warrick succeeded in talking him down with a playful tease and a promise that he’d be over to check up on him every couple hours to fill him in on what’s going on—despite Sara’s warning glare and reminder that Nick needed to _rest._

_Stay with him for just an hour Sara, you’ll see how hard it is to resist those big eyes of his, and the even larger heart._

Luckily Nick seemed to have still been so exhausted that he didn’t really fight as Warrick and Sara helped him settle in at home. Got him a new case of bottled water. Picked up his prescription. He insisted that they didn’t need to stay, and both were eager enough to get back to the case anyway. 

And Nick did seem to be resting, if Warrick’s heart rate was any indication. It still felt off balance, still had a slight ache, but there was no sort of panic. He could get back to doing his job, and Nick could _rest._

But then, they started watching the tapes. 

Warrick had thought nothing of it at first, not until Catherine pointed out what looked like, and what was, the same flyer he and Sara were laughing at just a few days prior. His heart picked up and it got worse when the Stalker name-dropped Nick’s name. 

And then got even worse when the team strutted down the halls quickly, racing to get to Nick’s house before it was too late.

It was.

The whole ride there, Warrick’s heart didn’t settle, didn’t slow. He felt an odd sort of dread, and not just the dread that something might happen, _again,_ to Nick, but the dread of being watched. The dread of being followed.

The dread of being _confronted._

The beat didn’t stop rising, higher and higher to the point where his breath couldn’t catch up fast enough. He bounded out of the car and rushed into the scene to find the aftermath of the attack on his heart, on _Nick’s_ heart. 

Brass was holding Nick, a hand cupped behind his neck. Reassuring him. Gently taking a gun out of his hands—What the _fuck_ could he be doing with a gun, Warrick feared which didn’t ease up the hypertension at all—And Nick’s eyes had been looking down, looking...guilty? Looking for his fallen heart? 

And then he lifted his head up, looked at Warrick, who exchanged places with Brass wordlessly as the elder man walked away, wiping his face and pulling Grissom aside. 

“You okay?” Warrick asked, his hands didn’t just cup the back of his head, another cupped his cheek, lifted his face up so that their eyes met. Nick’s eyes were still unfocused, a little glazed over, a symptom of the concussion surely, but still pulled at his heart nonetheless. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Nick gulped. That seemed to be all he could manage to say. It’s all he was able to say the last time a gun was shoved in his face—something Warrick wasn’t aware of at the time. 

Nick’s hand was still in the air, still holding an invisible gun and though his head was in Warrick’s hands his eyes strained to look at the body that was quickly being covered at their feet. 

The other hand was shaking at his side, balled up into a fist, trying to grab hold of his slipping control—Warrick picked it up, uncurled it, flattened it. Put it against Nick’s chest.

“Hey. I’m right here, okay? I’m here with you, right here,” Warrick told him. “Even when I’m not... _here_ here, you know what I mean?”

He felt silly, felt just as incomprehensible as the concussed Nick he talked to in the hospital. But they didn’t even need words to speak, their hearts—their _collective_ heart did that on its own.

“Yeah...Yeah…” Nick’s breathing slowed. Eerily calm. His shaking didn’t stop, Warrick saw a large gulp slide down his throat before he opened another door for Warrick, one he didn’t wait for him to come through before running out of it himself, to grab onto Warrick as if he were afraid he was going to leave. He buried himself into Warrick’s body, pushed their hearts together though physically they were still separated by flesh and bones. 

“I got you,” Warrick whispered. He gently moved them away from the scene, into a more private corner of Nick’s house. He held him until Nick stopped crying, until their hearts settled and finished melting and merging together. 

“I’m never going to leave you.”

For the next few years, it didn’t feel like they were ever apart. 

Even when they both had a heated argument and didn’t talk to each other for a week, they had the comfort of knowing that yes, Nick was sorry for yelling at his obviously stressed friend and yes, Warrick was sorry for being so judgmental over his empathetic nature just based on the matching aches in their hearts they carried until they finally made up through a joint session at the shooting range to literally fire away their frustrations. 

They stayed safe in those years, minus a few hiccups of Nick’s pride falling under his failure to get promoted—something which he didn’t even need to tell Warrick about, with Warrick’s near miss with a bomb-rigged house—something that set Nick inexplicably on edge for the whole day.

But they weren’t in any real danger.

Except for getting torn away from their shared mentor. Their team. 

Their family.

They still had each other, though. And even if they didn’t, they still had their shared heart, still had each other’s presence even if they were feet, or yards or _miles_ away. 

Until the day, the longest day, that pulled their heart to its limit, and threatened to stop it all entirely.

Everything had been normal, at first. Calm. Almost too calm. Nick asked Warrick what happened over the weekend, cause he had felt some raging flutters while he was doing literally nothing to trigger such a reaction—but Warrick explained that with the story of how he almost got into a fight of his own on a date night at the UFC match at the Spur. 

And Warrick was about ready to ask for a similar explanation as to what the hell could have scared Nick while he was having one of his best work days at a strip club, getting a chance to talk to some beautiful ladies and be a hero as he promised them justice for the assault that had happened.

He was mid sentence when he felt it. 

A sudden spike, the heart only got that high when it was in some sort of danger. Warrick’s instincts kicked in and he fumbled for his phone and his gun, ready to call for help and run to Nick’s side—

And then...it stopped. Rested. Nick did scare easily, maybe he saw a rat sifting through the trash at his alley scene and he just...jumped. And recovered. 

Wouldn’t be the first time, wouldn’t be the last.

But when he got a phone call in the middle of another sentence, he was the cause for the new wave of panic—but their heart didn’t seem to care. He threw on his lights and sped to the scene without hesitation, though there was a hesitation because why wasn’t Nick panicking, too? Why was the heart just sort of...dormant? Was Nick...resting?

Was Nick _dead?_

He arrived to the scene and somehow the entire police department fit into the small alley, trapping the scene of the crime, isolating the trail of Nick’s abduction.

As Warrick took measurements of the car, and pulled out the same coin that they had flipped just hours before, he realized that the reason their heart wasn’t taking in Warrick’s panic was because Nick was unconscious. Knocked out. Stuffed in a trunk and tied like a pig ready for slaughter. 

Though just as he did in the hospital, he woke up, if only for a brief minute or so, his heart wasting no time in alerting Warrick that yes, he’s still alive, but no, he doesn’t know where he is. 

And then it fell away again just as quick as before. 

Warrick’s guilt was replaced by fear, not liking this erratic game being played with his heart, _their_ heart, and more than that, he was worried about Nick, worried about what was happening, because _anything_ could be happening, he could be _anywhere_ —

And then the beat returned, Nick was awake again. Oddly...slow, at first. Curious. Reaching. Searching.

 _We’re searching for you too, Nick,_ he had hoped his heart could translate to him—he suddenly wished their connection was a more...verbal one. More distinctive, having the emotions clearer outside of assumptions made on elated heartbeats. 

Because Nick didn’t seem reassured in the slightest, even as Warrick struggled to keep his pulse under control in the creeping dread of watching Grissom dismantle a package—it was almost as if he was watching Grissom dismantle _Nick_ himself. 

And Nick was certainly being dismantled, his heartbeat was rising rapidly, to a boiling point, Warrick felt like his chest was about to burst out a scream just to get the pain away—

And then the sensation faded. The fluttering beat slowed. Ached, but ultimately returned to a more restful state...though it was resting in some sort of despair.

Was he being...tortured somehow? Brought in and out of consciousness to be exposed to some indescribable horror only to be put under again? 

But as they walked to the A/V lab to listen to the cassette tape Grissom couldn’t get any prints off of, as they then gathered around a computer screen and received the ransom instructions for this gravely dangerous game, Warrick couldn’t help but feel like their heart was unreachable. _Trapped_ in some sort of—

_Box._

Nick, trapped. Boxed. A box within a box within the box of the computer screen. 

He was awake, either just having been woken by the overly bright light illuminating his surroundings—which seemed to be new to him as he craned his neck and studied his prison—or otherwise...startled. 

It wasn’t like the previous scares, this one didn’t die for a few minutes, at least. And when it did, even then, even as Warrick saw him fall into a more...well, relaxed wasn’t the word he’d use but Nick seemed to have stopped screaming, stopped floundering against the jam-packed walls of dirt around him and seemed to be trying to collect himself. 

He wasn’t as good of a lip reader as Grissom, but he was able to make out an “okay” from Nick’s lips. The vocalization of a forced calm that gripped itself around their heart. Warrick clutched his chest, trying to force a calm on himself, too.

“How can we be sure it’s a live feed?”

“We have to assume that it is,” Warrick piped up, though he didn’t assume. He _knew_ this was the real deal. 

He didn’t need a heart monitor this time.

“The space in that box looks like two by two by six, which would be twenty-four cubic feet. That would hold approximately six hundred liters of air. If you figure half a liter per breath…”

Warrick felt his breathing become conservative, shoving down his heavy pants of breath back into his lungs, to give Nick his air as if they didn’t just share a heart but also a pair of lungs.

_Okay, Nicky, it’s okay, just. Breathe._

“Slow breathing...Maybe...twelve breaths per minute. Panic breathing would be, what, twice that much?”

 _But not too much,_ he pleaded, as the heart rose above his head and dared to fly away. He gripped his chest, trying to keep it behind his ribs. Squeezing onto it because he’ll be damned if he’s going to let go of Nick so easily.

“Well, if the math is right, he’s got about an hour and fifteen minutes of air left in that box.”

None of this was right.

It should be _him_ in that box. 

It should be _him_ on a timer. 

_He_ should be the reason for their breaking heart as he watches Nick cover his eyes with his hand. _Oh, God,_ Warrick feared, did he just make him cry by using their heart like a stress ball?

The feed disappeared, going back to the previous page.

_You can only WATCH._

Warrick clicked the button without hesitation, felt the startling spike in his heart that again doesn’t settle for at least another minute, and then more minutes, and more hours, and hours, and hours as they played this unwinnable game. Warrick had the luxury of taking breaks; though “break” was a loose term as he would still feel Nick’s conditioned response to the light _every time_ it was turned on, because his heart would rise and stay risen before falling back down the elevator shaft of his body. 

He did notice that he was almost getting...used to it, in a way. Wasn’t as startled by the halfway point to the ransom pay. 

That didn’t really offer much comfort to Warrick in the slightest. 

Just as seeing Nick’s parents didn’t seem to transmit any sort of comfort to Nick, too. Warrick may not have gotten to know his parents all that well but he knew Nick’s parents loved him. Knew _their_ shared heart was shattering as they watched him—though they couldn’t watch for long before Judge Stokes had to pick up Mrs. Stokes from falling.

Warrick had just been passing by when he saw this. When he saw Catherine rushing out. When he saw Grissom, defeated, in the A/V Lab. 

He swallowed hard, his heartbeat was at an all time low, but it was heavy. Like an anchor being bounced against the floor. He watched as Nick once again covered his face. Watched as he saw the weight of the situation _really_ sink in, threatening to drown their heart in a sea of despair, of hopelessness.

No, they couldn’t give in yet. 

They would get through this, together.

And he couldn’t just leave Nick.

 _Be there for him,_ a voice inside of himself told him.

So Warrick sat at the computer and stayed until the ransom was paid.

Well, almost paid. 

Their heartbeat rose as the time came to a close—Did Nick know about the ransom, he wondered, because at one point he had brought a tape recorder into view. He didn’t do anything with it, just sort of. Seemed to examine it. Play with the buttons. Maybe he just needed something to fidget with—he’d always fidget when their heart was anxious.

He wanted to go with, wanted the triumph of a rescue to reinvigorate hope within their helpless heart, but his heart sank when they fell into an overtime; the kidnapper had blown himself up, and Nick was still lost. Still trapped.

Warrick resigned himself as he went back to the lab, disrobing from his jumpsuit and immediately going back to the screen. 

Nick seemed resigned too, looking as if he was falling asleep.

Or trying to, at least.

And he knew that must have been hard to do with Warrick’s pressing to keep him awake. Keep him alive. Press the button, Nick lives. Keep it off, Nick could die or be dead. 

Though he had his heart to tell him, he still just wanted to make sure. 

Even if it was pissing Nick off. 

“Nuff witha’ damn light!” he could sort of make out from Nick’s lips, though he could feel the frustrated _thump-thump-thump_ like an angry knocking on the door to Nick that he was locked from getting into. 

Warrick wiped his eyes. He didn’t want to keep doing this, it was obviously adding to the torture, to the strain on their overexhausted heart. He thought of giving up, giving them both a break, perhaps both of them could take a nap together—but sure enough Greg or Sara or Archie would come back and they’d just continue the cycle, so at least if Warrick was there, he could control it and therefore maybe control their heart, too.

And he should have known that was a very poor call in judgement. 

Nick wouldn’t give up control that easily.

A battle ensued in their heart; Nick was essentially throwing some sort of spiteful tantrum, heart pounding with a determination like never before, but a fear like never before, too. Warrick’s was slowly rising with each of Nick’s movements, but he was still keeping a distance, not wanting to add to Nick’s fire and feed into his sudden ignition after nearly thirteen hours of relative dormancy. 

When Warrick saw the gun, however, he started to throw a tantrum of his own. He didn’t care if Nick couldn’t actually hear him, he began shouting at him—what the _fuck_ was he doing— _screaming_ at him—Don’t do it!—as their heart once again, went from a simmer to a full on boil—and the water was spilling over the pot; the stakes of this game suddenly went from a threat to a full on promise of death as Nick’s finger looped into the trigger and pulled and—

Their heart stopped.

“YOU SON OF A BITCH!” Warrick cried out, feeling a loss like he never had in his life. Somehow even worse than when his grandmother died.

And yet, he didn’t feel like he _lost_ anything, unless he lost his damn mind, because he swore he still felt Nick’s heart beat, shifting from entropy to elation—as if he may have been transcending into some sort of heaven.

In a way he was, because just a few seconds later, after a crazed laugh at his own expense, after giving Warrick a taste of the same startle he had always been teased over, he cracked one of the glowsticks as a beacon in the darkness.

 _Yes, I’m still here,_ Nick smiled, putting a hand over the heart as he celebrated the full flow of air; essentially cracking the window as it were, to the outside world. 

_But for how much longer, Nicky?_ Warrick held his head in one hand, held the heart in the other.

Nick’s elation simmered down after that, and Warrick added his party-pooping to the list of things to be guilty for for how he ruined Nick’s life.

The heart panged as Nick refuted that, his life was ruined a long time ago, Warrick had nothing to do with that. 

Warrick made it _better._

Still, Warrick couldn’t help but feel that this was his fault, all of it. That if he was in that box, he wouldn’t have made it this far. That he wasn’t doing enough to find him, that he was just as trapped as Nick was, that the air was getting thin and there would be no hands to pull him out of this hole—

“Hey!” Nick shouted. He heard scraping. _Digging._

 _You’re coming for me?_ He dared to hope, he asked the heart like some sort of magic eight ball. 

_Yes, we’re coming, this is it, we found you_ —

Nick didn’t hear it under the crashing of one of the highest waves the heart was surfing. He continued to pound on the lid, continued to shout, hell, even started singing which Warrick probably would have cringed at because his voice had cracked, it was going off key—Warrick could tell something wasn’t right by the similarly arrhythmic beat of their heart—a bird flying on one wing while Warrick soared towards to catch him before he fell—

“Nick! Hold on there, buddy!”

But his half of the heart was the first to fall in a skydive to the core of the earth, deeper than Nick was buried.

They dug up a dead dog. It felt like a taunt. A warning sign.

_This is how you’ll find Nick._

When Nick felt the crash, that’s when his hope turned to dread as he realized that it wasn’t a shovel he was hearing. Wasn’t scraping. 

It was _cracking._

The heartbeat didn’t settle, not even in the slightest for the following hours. Warrick had to constantly excuse himself, had to keep running outside for fresh air but it wasn’t enough to keep the heart full; the blood flow was also waning, no matter how much water and food he drank, Nick would still be the one starving. Dehydrating. 

_Dying._

Something Nick must have been feeling. Little flutters rose and fell as Warrick arrived to tell Grissom and Sara about the fan and light connection he found through the prototype, and he had chalked up the free fall of their heart to just another moment of despair, but when he walked in and saw what Nick had pulled up now for a sick game of show-and-tell, he wanted to vomit.

Nick was recording his last words.

And just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, the overboiling pot somehow reached past boiling, steam bubbles popping all over the skin of their heart even as Warrick splashed his face with cold water. Warrick fell to the ground, gripping his left arm as he had a literal heart attack—as _Nick_ had a heart attack, when he somehow made it back to the A/V lab to see what the hell was going on now, the heart was being flayed and eaten in plucking chunks, seasoned with some sort of delirious venom—

Coming from the _swarm_ of ants that were _eating Nick alive._

And the countdown on Nick’s life began once again, this time, a shorter limit, with absolutely no chance for overtime, no second chances. 

They saw Warrick struggling, and told him to sit on the bench. Grissom wordlessly told him once again that he needed to _calm down._

Fat fucking chance of that happening, Warrick owed it to Nick to keep going, keep pushing through. Keep their heart beating, keep their heart _alive_ as Nick was defenseless, as he _lost control._

It was comforting in a way, having the continuous heart attack to remind him that Nick was still alive. Especially when they made it to the nursery and he couldn’t see him on screen—when would the technology be made to have portable live feeds, he wondered, and why couldn’t it be made sooner?

His body was physically weakening under the strain of the heart, his lungs once again falling behind and unable to catch up, all of his blood sucked out and thinning—but if that meant he was helping Nick feel the hope and determination that he was constructing, even if he didn’t believe it, maybe it was all worth it.

He started digging faster than he ever could, he didn’t stop when the watch alarm went off— _beep-beep-beep_ just like the heart monitor in the hospital centuries ago. 

He didn’t have to stop to even look at the null timer. He knew the air was gone. He knew that Nick’s heart was raising higher and falling further with each rapid beat. The stakes were increasing far beyond their reach. 

_Thump-Thump-Thump-Thump-Thump-Thump-Thump-Thump-Thump-Thump-Thump-Thump_

He finally hit something, after what seemed like an endless amount of seconds.

Mere seconds was all they had.

All _Nick_ had.

He fell to his knees, even through his gloves he could feel it.

Their heart.

Nothing but a sheet of glass separating them.

“Hey!”

He was having another fit, though this one was more of a... _final_ one. 

Warrick wrestled for control with his words as he wiped away the dirt hiding their buried heart.

“Hey! We got you, man! Hey, Nicky!”

The heart that was being held hostage by Nick. At gunpoint, revealed as Nick wiped away his side of the glass.

“Hey, _put that down!”_ he shouted at him. “Put that down, we got you.”

Nick made an inhuman noise as the gun fell behind him, though the image of what he saw would never quite be erased from his mind. From either of their minds.

“We’re going to get you out of here,” Warrick assured him, pressing his hand against the glass, right above Nick’s heart. “Alright? It’s over, we got you.”

Nick continued to cry, putting his hand against Warrick’s, his fingers scratching between spasms of pain. They brought out a fire extinguisher, killed the ants. Their heart rose in wild anticipation, still not in the clear yet, Nick squirming and writhing and Warrick furiously working as fast as he could, the air was getting as thin as his blood. The heart was daring to give up.

And it was forced to. Both of them were forced to. 

Nick screamed for help.

And Warrick walked away.

They had foolishly thought their heart was broken before. It wasn’t. Not like this. Not _shattered_ like this, not snuffed like this. 

Warrick barely had strength to get out of the hole. Greg had to lift him out of it. 

Nick fell into hysterics, even more unreachable than before—he may have already been dead with how Grissom’s words didn’t even phase him, not until Grissom managed to get a hold of him with an old childhood name—their heart swelled, Warrick suddenly thought of his grandmother, of his _home._

“Put your hand on my hand,” Grissom instructed, and unbeknownst to him, Warrick was in that box, too, his hand merged with Nick’s as they reached out for help for an overwhelming mess they couldn’t clean up without outside help.

Grissom manages to talk Nick down, get him to the point of understanding, yet another “yeah, yeah,” which Warrick knew meant he didn’t _really_ comply, didn’t _really_ understand—the man was obviously starved in more ways than one and it was somehow even more torturous to watch him have to make a tearful promise that he didn’t understand the weight of, didn’t understand the reason for, didn’t even obey when the lid was finally open and his hand thrust into the air, gripped onto Grissom and their heart was squeezed tighter than ever before.

“Please... _Please…”_ he begged through the most devastating sobs Warrick had ever heard before. 

“I got you,” Warrick immediately said, outstretching his hand, nudging Grissom to move just a few inches aside. “I got you, lay still. Lay still…”

Grissom was grimacing, Nick’s grip was tight and even tighter on Warrick. He had one hand planted on Nick’s chest, the other keeping himself from falling in. 

“It’s okay. It’s _okay,”_ Warrick reassured Nick, who seemed to settle, seemed to finally wrangle a bit of his self control back from the throes of delirium. He took a few deep breaths, and the panic ebbed away from the collective heartbeat. 

Nick looked to Grissom, and Grissom looked to Warrick before looking back at Nick, who then nodded at Warrick. 

Grissom’s hand was on Nick’s heart, Warrick’s heart. _Their_ heart.

Warrick kept his focus on Nick, not paying attention to the elder man’s revelation and once again had to be lifted out of the hole, practically dragged away as Nick, though he had quieted, was still obviously in need of a hand to hold. 

Grissom’s plan worked, though not until after another near miss—their heart froze in the wake of the explosion, unable to comprehend whether it was living or dying—once the dust settled Warrick rushed over, put Nick’s hands onto his chest and reminded him “ _I’m here. I’m right here”_ before he was swaddled underneath a forensics jacket for warmth, though he kept it up all the way to the hospital. Holding his hand. Pressing his chest. Resuscitating their heart. 

“I found you. I’ll always find you,” Warrick told him, when he had to convince Nick that he was real, in a hallucinatory moment in the hospital. 

“Yeah...yeah…” Nick mumbled, and put Warrick’s hand on his chest. 

They thought the worst was over. 

They had never been more mistaken in their lives. 

The next few years, the most intense beats were reserved more for fits of passionate anger; Warrick nearly starting a fight with some street punk with a gun, Nick losing control after Greg was beaten within an inch of his life, Warrick feeling hurt by Tina, Nick feeling betrayed by Catherine, both of them reeling on a roller coaster when Sara was kidnapped and her relationship with Grissom was revealed.

It was a sick and twisted game with equal highs—such as Eli’s birth—as there were downs—Nick’s PTSD on full blast, especially when he couldn’t sleep—but it was really after Sara’s abduction that they should have seen it coming. Sara depressed, then leaving. Grissom depressed, and becoming reclusive. Catherine reaching out for an unavailable Warrick.

Warrick’s uncharacteristic spiral out of control.

And Nick?

Helpless to do anything about it, other than _be there for him._

He thought he had gotten through to him, confronting him as their heart pinballed between elation and depression, tossed around like a hackey sack and while Nick expressed his anger— _“It’s my heart too, Warrick!”_ —he also realized Warrick needed help. His help. Any help.

And they got him some, they helped clear his name and they thought that was it. The end of a depressing chapter in their lives and the healing could start. 

Yet when Warrick needed him most…

He wasn’t there.

They should have known something was wrong that night at the restaurant. It was too happy. Everyone was too happy. Their heart was over-pouring with happiness, with _love,_ with a family forged in fire that was about to go their separate ways, if only briefly, but if they hadn’t…

If Nick had left with Warrick, and not stayed to flirt with destiny…

Maybe, just maybe…

He had finally gotten the waitress’ attention, leaning on the table and his cheeks blushing and his heart fluttering because it finally seemed like he was getting a taste of some pretty good luck, being able to hold a conversation with this lovely woman who had an infectious smile and cheeks as red as his. 

It was going so well, until his heart was dragged down into a life-endangering hell that he thought he’d never see again. 

“I...I gotta go, I-I’m sorry,” Nick stammered, unsure of what was happening, he needed air, there was no air here, there was no fan, the light was turning green, he put his hand against his chest because the heart was on some sort of fritz before it crashed. It froze. 

And didn’t just freeze, it _seized._ Spasmed. Rose and fell. Got sad, then angry. Then sad again. Grew cold, so much colder than the warmth that it was just wrapped in. 

Cold as a corpse.

“N-No...No, no, no, no, Rick!” Nick didn’t even know how he had the strength to run. Urgency, perhaps, to bring the heart back to life, because it was fading and fading fast. He couldn’t reach it, it was floating away like a balloon, drifting into the alley where Warrick had parked his car—

The car that had an open door.

The car that had a body spilled out besides it.

Warrick’s body.

Warrick’s _lifeless_ body. 

Cradled by Grissom.

“WARRICK!” Nick screamed, running and sliding and his knees scraped but he didn’t give a shit, he pried the body out of Grissom’s hold and fell down into the pool of blood collected underneath the body that wasn’t him, couldn’t be him but it was. And the blood was real, too. 

All that was left of their heart.

“No, Wa-Warrick, stay. Stay, be here, let me be here for you…” Nick shook his head, tried to scoop the blood back into the hole it came out of, right in his neck—no wonder Warrick wasn’t talking, no wonder he couldn’t tell what was happening, he couldn’t communicate, even with all the doors Nick had opened for him— _every_ door he had, all for him, to let him in—

“He’s...he’s gone, Nick.”

“No, he’s not gone, he’s not—”

Grissom let go of Warrick, but remained on the ground. Crawled over to the car, leaned against it and that’s where he sat until after Warrick’s body would be taken away.

Nick meanwhile, didn’t give up. Put his hand on Warrick’s chest. Put Warrick’s hand on his own, held it to _his_ chest.

“Come on, C’mon man, you-you can’t do this. You can’t leave like this!” he sobbed. 

Warrick’s hand dropped flaccidly when Nick’s body shook so hard it couldn’t keep any sort of hold. 

He let out a scream, or at least, what resembled one, before he got to his feet, spun around, his fist flying into the brick wall behind him because it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right. 

It was _Nick’s fault_ that their heart failed.

Long before it was ever supposed to. 

He didn’t even feel the pain in his broken hand. Didn’t feel anything at all, after he collected what was left of himself and sat on the opposite side of the alley. 

Nick cupped his hands against his chest, trying to start the ignition to a car that was beyond repair. 

He looked up to the sky, as if Warrick was going to reach down, put his hands on his chest, and remind him—

_“I’m still here. Even when I’m not.”_

He had survived so much, but how could he survive _this?_ He felt empty, emptier than ever before. Somewhere beyond “lost.”

_“I’ll always find you.”_

He’d be waiting forever, he _will_ wait forever for that to happen. 

_Thump. Thump-Thump. Thump-Thump._

He would never stop waiting. 

_Thump._

For Warrick.


End file.
